Teen girls pitch winning app

A team of six teenage girls from New York won a pitch contest Thursday with their mobile attendance app “Arrive,” which lets students check in to their school.

The team beat out nine other finalists from around the world, including ones from the San Francisco Bay Area’s Dougherty Valley High School, Homestead High and the Castilleja School.

The “Technovation Challenge” is one of several efforts to encourage more young women to learn and pursue careers in technology. Organized by the science and technology education non-profit Irisdescent, about 600 middle and high school students, making up 114 teams, spent 12 weeks developing their app idea and business model. The finalists competed Thursday night at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters.

“Arrive” is an app that schools, teachers and parents can use to check that students are attending school. Students can use the app to “check in,” with the app’s geolocation technology tracking students within 60 feet of the school. Students can also scan a QR code at the entrance of the school. Worried parents of high school students with senioritis can also receive a text message when their children check in at school. The team receives a $10,000 prize and assistance with building the app.